Tagged: beauty

We decided to tackle some Pinterest-inspired facial DIYs. These DIYs are ones that can be done in your home, or if you’re going back to college (wow, where did summer go?), your dorm room or apartment.

We took ingredients from our pantry and kitchen and braved these three DIYs:

Brown Sugar Lip Scrub

This was a great DIY that we definitely recommend. It takes about 10 minutes, and the resulting product is comparable to Lush’s Mint Julip Lip Scrub.

Our weapons!

What you’ll need:

Brown sugar (~$2 or less)

Olive oil (~$7)

Bowl

As an experiment, we tried the same DIY but used Sugar in the Raw instead of brown sugar. This does NOT work. The sugar grains are too large, and only brown sugar has a consistency that is easy to mix with olive oil to create a scrub.

This is a far cheaper solution to dry-lips than many chapsticks, lip balms, or lip scrubs, especially if you already own the materials. We actually preferred our DIY scrub to Lush’s lip scrub because of the extra oil, making it more moisturizing and easier to apply.

This is great for a quick girls’ night activity for you college students, or if you have any brown sugar laying around.

Result: effective!

Pore Strips

This is a rather easy DIY (takes about 15 minutes), but using careful measurements are extremely important.

What you’ll need:

Flavorless gelatin (~$3)

Milk

Bowl

Makeup brush or popsicle stick

Unflavored gelatin

When we did this DIY, we used 2 tbsp of milk (the instructions say anywhere from 1.5 to 2 tbsp). The most difficult part was being ready to apply the finished solution right when it came out of the microwave. The solution congeals very quickly, but it was also rather hot so be careful to apply quickly but carefully.

Ouch!

Warning: This solution smells pretty bad. We added lavender oil after microwaving and the smell partially went away. It wasn’t so bad that it was unbearable, but for those of you sensitive to smell, be prepared. And in all honesty, peeling the mask off hurts a bit!

Our overall opinion is that this DIY is a viable, cheaper alternative to the Biore pore strips (~$9) and doesn’t dry out your skin as much.

Result: effective!

Lavender-basil Blackhead Remover

The procedure for this is very simple: combine the lavender oil and basil, boil, steam your face, and wash with baking soda.

Dried basil leaves, L’Occitane Lavender Essential Oil

What you’ll need:

Lavender oil (we used a $35 L’Occitane oil but it costs about $10 at other stores, like Whole Foods)

Fresh or dried basil (dried basil from Walmart for about $5)

Baking soda

Stove

Our lavender and basil boiling.

However, the results weren’t very satisfactory. We found that our skin felt no different afterwards. Also, the amount of time spent steaming our face was a little longer than we liked, and washing skin with baking soda can burn a little.

Steaming and waiting… tick tock.

If you plan on doing this DIY, try using real basil leaves and keep your face over the steam for the entire time. Let us know if you have a successful experience with this one!

Result: unsuccessful!

All of these fun spa ideas can be done in the comfort of your own home or dorm room, as long as you have at least a stove or something to boil water with — a hot water boiler or microwave, for example. Grab some girl friends and make it happen!